Global ChangeIntersection of Nature and Culture

Stavins: “What’s the Proper Role of Individuals and Institutions in Addressing Climate Change?”

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

That’s the question asked by Robert Stavins at Harvard.  This piece is worth reading.  He wrestles with many of the same questions that many of us in higher education have thought a lot about (here, here, here, and here):

My view of a university’s responsibilities in the environmental realm is similar.  Our direct impact on the natural environment — such as in terms of CO₂ emissions from our heating plants — is absolutely trivial compared with the impacts on the environment (including climate change) of our products:  knowledge produced through research, informed students produced through our teaching, and outreach to the policy world carried out by faculty.

So, I suggested to the students that if they were really concerned with how the university affects climate change, then their greatest attention should be given to priorities and performance in the realms of teaching, research, and outreach.

Of course, it is also true that work on the “greening of the university” can in some cases play a relevant role in research and teaching.  And, more broadly — and more importantly — the university’s actions in regard to its “carbon footprint” can have symbolic value.  And symbolic actions — even when they mean little in terms of real, direct impacts — can have effects in the larger political world.  This is particularly true in the case of a prominent university, such as my own.

But, overall, my institution’s greatest opportunity — indeed, its greatest responsibility — with regard to addressing global climate change is and will be through its research, teaching, and outreach to the policy community.

Although I applaud the call for more emphasis on environmental teaching and the addition of environmental courses, several impediments exist in higher education and beyond which make it difficult to translate these actions into a more environmentally literate society:

• Disciplines, departments, and majors have long been divided into separate silos.  We reward specialization and expertise over the kinds of interdisciplinarity that is needed to conceive of and deal with global change problems.  As we have seen in previous posts, it’s time for higher education to consider adding problem-centered approaches to the general curriculum.
• As a result, training students about the environment is often the responsibility of environmental studies and science (ESS) programs.   This is a problem because it absolves most departments and faculty from having to engage the environment as a serious issue.  Many programs at a typical university operate as if humans have little or no connection to the natural world.  Until human systems are properly embedded in natural systems and students are encouraged/required to explore these linkages, there is little reason for students to associate the human experience with impacts on the natural world.
• These kinds of structures are problematic.   At best, it means that most students in higher education receive little substantive training in how their lives connect with the natural world.  At worst, students are trained to perpetuate disciplinary tradition that (1) ignores the relationship between human societies and the environment and (2) values high achievement in a world that is ecologically unsustainable and socially unjust as a measure of success.
• There can be limits to a “more knowledge” approach.  Namely, as we have seen with climate communication, cultural values shape the perception/reception of information.  Just as  scientific facts seldom speak for themselves, we can’t expect a push for more education to always solve environmental challenges either.  The way messages are framed is important.  And the cultural context of the target audience is also critical.  Most people in the world have a very different cultural background than Harvard undergraduates.